Just PlaneBusiness...

Rohit Khare (rohit@bordeaux.ICS.uci.edu)
Tue, 02 Dec 1997 20:50:16 -0800


Just wanted to plug a fascinating little information service, PlaneBusiness.

It's a spinout of Motley Fool (or is it TheStreet?) which offers very, very
tweakish investment advice onthe airline sector -- and some general feature
coverage. Holly Hegeman, the lady in charge, spun it out as its own $5/mo
business, and I can see that it'd be invaluable if I were in that line of
work.

Today, there's a deep new piece on the economics of CRSes: how they make money
on each transaction on a PNR.

http://www.planebusiness.com/perspectives1201crs.html

An auditor found:

"Now, if a travel agency books a party of 80 on two legs, that is 160
transactions. If they cancel that same booking, its another 160
transactions. If a booking transaction costs $1.00 and a cancellation
transaction costs $.25, that party of 80 just cost the airline $200 and
generated a net zero passengers. Talk about the new math.

We have done a lot of BIDT audits, but the most prolific passive booking
(PNR) we ever saw was one that generated over $5,000 in booking fees
and a net zero passengers. The transactions closely mimic those in the
example above, though with a slightly larger party, and span two months."

I can't believe the numbers might even be *close* to $1. Cost should be around
3 cents, but this explains the profits, eh?

RK